An Elegy upon the Death of my Lord Francis Villiers

Abstract

This poem was first printed as Marvell’s by Margoliouth in 1928. It came to him by way of C. H. Wilkinson from an unlicensed anonymous quarto in the collection which had been left to Worcester College, Oxford by the bibliophile — politician George Clarke (1660–1736), a collection begun by his father, Sir William (1623–66). On the first of the quarto’s eight pages, the title page, the words ‘by Andrew Marvell’ are added in the hand of George Clarke. A second copy came to light in 1974 at the College of Wooster, Ohio, USA. There is as yet no third.